KOEVOET 1979-1989

Koevoet or Operation K as it was also known fought in the Operational Area in South West Africa and at times in southern Angola from 11 January 1979 until 12 January 1990 under the command of Major General “Sterk Hans” Dreyer. Koevoet was established when General Magnus Malan (Chief of the South African Defence Force) requested the Intelligence Section of the South African Police to set up an irregular type of operation in the operational area to work with 5 Recce of the SADF.

Koevoet was originally set up to develop and exploit intelligence that was gathered by the police and the SADF’s 5 Recce. Their original task was to collate and pass this intelligence along so the security forces could react quickly and exploit the information. In addition Koevoet provided trackers for the SADF. Relying on units of the SADF for a reaction force deployment, however, caused problems and often by the time the intelligence was collated, passed on to the reaction force and then acted upon, it was too late. General Dreyer continued to press his view that a special police unit should combine both tracking ability and reaction force capability until finally, the authorities bowed to the Generals arguments, and Koevoet formed its own reaction force to cut through the red tape and eliminate all the delays. The new reaction force was a tremendous success, engaging in thirty-six contacts in its first ninety days of operation. It didn’t take long for Koevoet to become well-known throughout the operational area. During its first year of operation, Koevoet killed 511 PLAN terrorists while losing only twelve of its own men.

The secret of Koevoet’s success is working with and relying on timely information from the local population in the operational area. The information they get is up to date and obtained through normal police work. Their approach to counterinsurgency is that it is essentially normal police work involving a lot of combat and that it is not warfare in the normal military sense. Koevoet, like SWATF’s 101 Battalion, also uses the principle of setting a thief to catch a thief by employing former terrorists to catch PLAN infiltrators. About a quarter of the Koevoet trackers were ex-PLAN terrorists. Not only do they pursue their former comrades with the zeal of the converted, but their knowledge and use is invaluable due to their uncanny insight into the likely movements and reactions of the hunted PLAN groups. They would follow a trail to a conclusion no matter where it took them. Koevoet was not restricted by battalion, company or military sector boundaries. It was not unusual for Koevoet groups to chase their target back and forth through Owamboland, over the border into Angola and to catch them near FAPLA bases some distance into Angola.

Contacts with single terrorists or small groups of PLAN terrorists were handled by the trackers pursuing them on the ground, with the Casspirs providing cover on the flanks. Larger contacts were normally carried out mounted on the Casspirs, taking advantage of the vehicles’ firepower, manoeuvrability, protection and fields of vision. This procedure eliminated most of the confusion as to friend or foe, common to a major contact. In general, Koevoet personnel came from the ethnic group in which area the Koevoet team would be operating. Owambo’s work in Ovamboland, Kavango’s in Kavangoland, etc. …. However, the groups are not made up exclusively of sub tribes within the main tribal area. They are usually mixed so that each group will have at least one or two men from each area that will be familiar with its terrain, people, dialect and customs.

This procedure is similar to having policemen patrol the neighbourhoods they grew up in-they know it and the people living in it.